Horseshoe Bend Canyon Spring Frolic Race Report

“Perseverance: is not a long race; it is many short races one after another.” -Walter Elliott

My running club hosts at least one race every month. This month was an 11 miler called the Horseshoe Bend Canyon Spring Frolic. Basically, it was out in the middle of nowhere and we ran out of a canyon then back into it. It was a lot of fun & pretty cool to have hills on a West Texas race course. The only way we find hills out here is to find a hole in the ground and run out of it.

Mile 1 (8:15.96): I started out a little faster than I wanted to, but I felt really good.
Mile 2 (9:06.26): This was a little slower because we started running out of the canyon. This hill lasted about .75 miles.
Miles 3, 4, and 5 (8:36.57, 8:36.75, 8:37.57): These miles were just a long, flat straightaway. It was nice to be running out there by myself. During these miles I was in 3rd place for the women & I was keeping my pace pretty steady. I ran by a few farms. One of the houses had three goats tied up in the front yard.
Miles 6 & 7 (8:48.76, 8:52.79): I turned onto another straightaway, but now I was fighting the wind. One girl passed me & that was a little disheartening. I thought I might be able to catch her after we got out of the wind. I remember thinking that the view on this stretch of road was awesome. It was like I could see for miles. There were only a few houses to obscure my sight of the horizon. It was pretty cool.
Miles 8 & 9 (9:11.00, 9:30.00): I turned out of the wind, but another girl passed me. I was pretty tired from the wind & the fact that I got passed made me lose some of the motivation to speed up for the last stretch. I decided to just enjoy the last few miles.
Miles 10 & 11 (8:23.81, 8:18.21): These miles were downhill & really nice. This was the only part of the course that was shaded. The trees made a canopy over the road. It reminded me of some of the back roads around where I lived when I was growing up. No one else passed me on this portion of the course, but I didn't pass anyone either. I ended up finishing in 1:36:22 gun time (1:36:18.41 watch time), 20th out of 36, 5th for the women, and 2nd in my age group. The medal from this race is not as good as the Prairie Dog Runs medal; it's pretty plain & simple.
One of the coolest things about this race is that my husband got suckered into volunteering! Maybe he'll volunteer at all the races he goes to now. I think it was good for him to help out & it helped make the time go by faster for him. Volunteers are a huge part of the races we run. We should always make it a point to thank the volunteers & to volunteer every once in a while ourselves.

The past two weeks of training:
M: 4.7 mi (tempo), 43:14.26
T: 5 mi (supposed to be easy, but I skipped lunch [because someone stole it from the fridge]. This was a really hard run!), 48:40.66
W: 3 mi (easy), 28:12.74
Th: 4.63 mi (0.17 mi warm up, 8x400 repeats, 0.92 mi cooldown), repeat times: 87.70, 83.81, 84.31, 86.33, 87.12, 86.55, 85.88, 86.32
S: Race 11 mi, 1:36:22
We left for vacation after the race. I only skipped two of my runs one vacay, but one of them was speedwork. I'll work extra hard to make it up next week though. ;)
S: 3 mi (easy), 26:57.70
M: 3.33 mi (tempo), 30:00
T: 3 mi (easy), 25.38.60
F: 5 K (race pace), 22:18.97 (with approximately 30 s of waiting on crosswalks)